Prepping the Diet

Since all I need to do to finalize my terrarium is add the substrate and get a hide-away, and since I thought I'd actually have my gecko by now, I got my cricket keeper and feed a couple days back.

The tank is the small Kricket Keeper by Lee's Aquarium and Pet Supplies. I've seen other brands that come with small built-in (I think) food and water dishes, of which the Kricket Keeper had none. The Exo-Terra brand name equivalent is an example of the latter. After having done some price checks, the difference amounts to a couple dollars, so I guess it's justifiable. Besides, I didn't feel like ordering one online. I'm sure this product will work just fine (despite the Mortal Kombat style changing of "cricket" to "kricket")

For food and water, I went with Fluker's Orange Cube and  Cricket Quencher. I've read good things about the Orange Cube, but I have come across some accounts that state that the calcium enhanced Cricket Quencher may actually do the crickets too much good; I've read that the extra calcium goes straight to the cricket's exoskeleton, making them harder to digest. Since the Orange Cube contains a certain amount of moisture, I might hold off on the the Quencher till my gecko is a little older and more likely able to digest these things. I may not. I mean, I keep hearing different answers from every source, so I may just have to go with my gut. Gut-loaded crickets. Haha.

I still plan on dusting them with calcium powder before hand, but to avoid hypercalcemia, I'll probably only dust a couple crickets a week. In terms of cricket feeding frequencies, again, I find myself facing down a multitude of opinions. The young lad at PetSmart indicates I should feed crickets daily and as many as the gecko can eat withing five minutes. The literature I obtained from PetSmart says crickets 2 to 3 times a week. I'm more inclined to go with the second amount, as it matches the recommended amount listed on Pangea, yet another very helpful source of information I came across while doing my research.

I also intend to provide Fluker's Crested Gecko dietary food more or less as recommended, depending on how much my gecko will consume.

All this just makes me wonder if geckos share traits with their crocodillian and testudine (turtle) cousins, in that they continue to grow giving sufficient food and living space, like the case of Gustave. I'd love to be able to raise a monster-sized gecko!

Picture of my feeding and cleaning products